The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories Part 4

I obeyed.

"Shall the duel go on?"--he added, addressing Bizmyonkoff.

Bizmyonkoff made him no reply; but the Prince, without removing the handkerchief from the wound, nor even giving himself the satisfaction of teasing me at the barrier, replied with a smile: "The duel is ended,"

and fired into the air. I nearly wept with vexation and rage. That man, by his magnanimity, had definitively trampled me in the mud, had cut my throat. I wanted to protest, I wanted to demand that he should fire at me; but he stepped up to me, and offering me his hand, "Everything is forgotten between us, is it not?"--he said, in a cordial voice.

I cast a glance at his pale face, at that blood-stained handkerchief, and utterly losing my head, blushing with shame, and annihilated, I pressed his hand...

"Gentlemen!"--he added, addressing the seconds:--"I hope that all this will remain a secret?"

"Of course!"--exclaimed Koloberdyaeff,--"but, Prince, allow me...."

And he himself bound up his head.

The Prince, as he departed, bowed to me once more; but Bizmyonkoff did not even bestow a glance on me. Slain,--morally slain,--I returned home with Koloberdyaeff.

"But what ails you?"--the captain asked me. "Calm yourself; the wound is not dangerous. He can dance to-morrow, if he likes. Or are you sorry that you did not kill him? In that case, you 're wrong; he 's a splendid fellow."

"Why did he spare me?!"--I muttered at last.

"Oho! so that 's it!"--calmly retorted the captain... "Okh, these romancers will be the death of me!"

I positively refuse to describe my tortures in the course of the evening which followed this unlucky duel. My pride suffered inexpressibly. It was not my conscience which tormented me; the consciousness of my stupidity annihilated me. "I myself have dealt myself the last, the final blow!" I kept repeating as I paced my room with long strides....

"The Prince wounded by me and forgiving me .... yes, Liza is his now.

Nothing can save her now, nor hold her back on the brink of perdition."

I was very well aware that our duel could not remain a secret, in spite of the Prince's words; in any case, it could not remain a secret to Liza. "The Prince is not so stupid"--I whispered in a frenzy--"as not to take advantage of it."... And, nevertheless, I was mistaken: the whole town heard about the duel and its actual cause,--on the very next day, of course; but it was not the Prince who had babbled--on the contrary; when he had presented himself to Liza with a bandaged head and an excuse which had been prepared in advance, she already knew everything...

Whether Bizmyonkoff had betrayed me, or whether the news had reached her by other roads, I cannot say. And, after all, is it possible to conceal anything in a small town? You can imagine how Liza took it, how the whole Ozhogin family took it! As for me, I suddenly became the object of universal indignation, of loathing, a monster, a crazily jealous man, and a cannibal. My few acquaintances renounced me, as they would have renounced a leper. The town authorities appealed to the Prince with a proposition to chastise me in a stern and exemplary manner; only the persistent and importunate entreaties of the Prince himself warded off the calamity which menaced my head. This man was fated to annihilate me in every way. By his magnanimity he had shut me up as though with my coffin-lid. It is needless to say that the Ozhogins' house was immediately closed to me. Kirila Matvyeevitch even returned to me a plain pencil, which I had left at his residence. In reality, he was precisely the last man who should have been incensed with me. My "crazy"

jealousy, as they called it in the town, had defined, elucidated, so to speak, the relations between Liza and the Prince. The old Ozhogins themselves and the other residents began to look upon him almost in the light of a betrothed husband. In reality, that could not have been quite agreeable to him; but he liked Liza very much; and moreover, at that time he had not, as yet, attained his object.... With all the tact of a clever man of the world, he accommodated himself to his new position, immediately entered into the spirit of his new part, as the saying is....

But I!... I then gave up in despair, so far as I myself was concerned, and so far as my future was concerned. When sufferings reach such a pitch that they make our whole inward being crack and creak like an overloaded cart, they ought to cease being ridiculous.... But no!

laughter not only accompanies tears to the end, to exhaustion, to the point where it is impossible to shed any more of them,--not at all! it still rings and resounds at a point where the tongue grows dumb and lamentation itself dies away.... And then, in the first place, as I have no intention of appearing absurd even to myself, and in the second place, as I am frightfully tired, I shall defer the continuation and, G.o.d willing, the conclusion of my story until to-morrow....

March 29. A light frost; last night there was a thaw.

Yesterday I was unable to go on with my diary; like Poprishshtchin, I lay most of the time in bed, and chatted with Terentievna. There 's a woman for you! Sixty years ago she lost her first betrothed from the plague, she has outlived all her children, she herself is unpardonably old, she drinks tea to her heart's content, she is well-fed, warmly clad; but what do you think she talked to me about yesterday? I had ordered that the cape of an old livery-coat should be given to another utterly denuded old woman for a waistcoat (she wears a breast-piece in the shape of a waistcoat).... The cape was pretty thoroughly eaten by moths, so why should not she have it? "Well, it strikes me that I 'm your nurse.... O-okh, my dear little father, 't is a sin for you to do that.... And have n't I been tending you?".... and so forth. The merciless old woman fairly wore me out with her reproaches.... But let us return to the story.

So, then, I suffered like a dog which has had the hind part of its body run over by a wheel. Only then,--only after my expulsion from the Ozhogins' house,--did I become definitively aware how much pleasure a man may derive from the contemplation of his own unhappiness. Oh, men!

ye are, in reality, a pitiful race!... Well, but that is in the nature of a philosophical remark.... I pa.s.sed my days in utter solitude, and only in the most roundabout and even base ways was I able to find out what was going on in the Ozhogin family, what the Prince was doing. My servant struck up an acquaintance with the great-aunt of the wife of his coachman. This acquaintance afforded me some alleviation, and my servant speedily was able, from my hints and gifts, to divine what it behooved him to talk about with his master, when he was pulling off the latter's boots at night. Sometimes I chanced to meet in the street some member of the Ozhogin family, Bizmyonkoff, or the Prince.... With the Prince and Bizmyonkoff I exchanged bows, but I did not enter into conversation. I saw Liza thrice in all: once with her mamma, in a milliner's shop, once in an open calash with her father, her mother, and the Prince; once in church. Of course, I did not venture to approach her, and only gazed at her from afar. In the shop she was anxious but cheerful.... She was ordering something for herself, and busily trying on ribbons. Her mother was gazing at her, with hands clasped on her stomach, her nose elevated, and indulging in that stupid and affectionate smile which is permissible only to fond mothers. Liza was in the calash with the Prince.... I shall never forget that meeting! The old Ozhogins were sitting on the back seat of the calash, the Prince and Liza in front. She was paler than usual; two pink streaks were barely discernible on her cheeks. She was half-turned toward the Prince; supporting herself on her outstretched right hand (she was holding her parasol in her left), and wearily bending her head, she was gazing straight into his face with her expressive eyes. At that moment she was surrendering herself utterly to him, trusting him irrevocably. I did not have a chance to get a good look at his face,--the calash dashed past too swiftly,--but it seemed to me that he also was deeply moved.

The third time I saw her was in church. Not more than ten days had elapsed since the day when I had encountered her in the calash with the Prince, not more than three weeks since my duel. The business on account of which the Prince had come to O*** had long been finished; but he still deferred his departure; he reported in Petersburg that he was ill.

In the city, people were expecting every day a formal proposal on his part to Kirila Matvyeevitch. I myself was only waiting for this last blow, in order to retire forever. The town of O*** had grown loathsome to me. I could not sit still at home, and from morning till night I dragged myself about the suburbs. One grey, wet day, as I was returning from a stroll which had been cut short by the rain, I stepped into the church. The evening service was only just beginning, there were very few people present; I looked about me, and suddenly, near a window, I descried a familiar profile. At first I did not recognise it; that pale face, that extinct glance, those sunken cheeks--could it be the same Liza whom I had seen two weeks before? Enveloped in a cloak, with no hat on her head, illuminated from one side by a cold ray of light, which fell through the broad window of white gla.s.s, she was staring immovably at the ikonostasis, and, apparently, making a violent effort to pray, striving to escape from some sort of dejected rigidity. A fat, red-cheeked page with yellow cartridge-cases on his breast[14] was standing behind her, with his hands clasped behind his back, and staring with sleepy surprise at his mistress. I shuddered all over; I started to go to her, but stopped short. A torturing foreboding gripped my breast.

Liza never stirred until the very end of vespers. All the congregation departed, a chanter began to sweep out the church, and still she did not stir from her place. The page approached her, and touched her gown; she glanced round, pa.s.sed her hand over her face, and went away. I escorted her, at a distance, to her house, then returned home.

"She is ruined!" I exclaimed, as I entered my room.

Being a man, I do not know to this day what was the nature of my sensations then. I remember that, folding my arms, I flung myself on the divan, and riveted my eyes on the floor; but I did not know why, only, in the midst of my grief, I seemed to be pleased at something.... I would not have admitted that on any account, if I were not writing for myself.... I really had been tortured by painful, terrible forebodings .... and, who knows, perhaps I should have been disconcerted if they had not been fulfilled. "Such is the human heart!" some middle-aged Russian teacher would exclaim at this point, in an expressive voice, raising on high his thick forefinger adorned with a carnelian ring. But what care we for the opinion of a Russian teacher with an expressive voice, and a carnelian ring on his finger?

Be that as it may, my forebodings had turned out to be correct. The news suddenly spread through the town that the Prince had taken his departure, in consequence, nominally, of an order from Petersburg; that he had gone away without having made any proposal of marriage either to Kirila Matvyeevitch or to his spouse, and that Liza would continue to mourn his perfidy to the end of her days. The Prince's departure had been entirely unexpected, because, as late as the evening before, his coachman, according to the a.s.sertions of my servant, had not in the least suspected his master's intention. This news threw me into a fever.

I immediately dressed myself, was on the point of running to the Ozhogins'; but after thinking the matter over, I concluded that it would be decorous to wait until the following day. However, I lost nothing by remaining at home. That evening there ran in to see me a certain Pandopipopulo, a Greek on his travels, who had accidentally got stranded in O***, a gossip of the first magnitude, who, more than any one else, had seethed with indignation against me for my duel with the Prince. He did not even give my servant time to announce him, but fairly forced his way into my room, shook me vigorously by the hand, made a thousand excuses for his conduct, called me a model of magnanimity and fearlessness, depicted the Prince in the blackest colours, did not spare the old Ozhogins, whom Fate had, in his opinion, justly punished; he gave a hit at Liza also in pa.s.sing, and ran off, after kissing me on the shoulder. Among other things, I learned from him that the Prince, _en vrai grand seigneur_, on the eve of his departure, had replied coldly to a delicate hint from Kirila Matvyeevitch, that he had not intended to deceive any one and was not thinking of marrying; had risen, and made his bow, and that was the last they had seen of him....

On the following day, I betook myself to the Ozhogins'. The blear-eyed footman, at my appearance, sprang from the bench in the anteroom with lightning-like swiftness; I ordered him to announce me. The lackey hastened off, and immediately returned: "Please enter," said he; "I am ordered to invite you in." I entered Kirila Matvyeevitch's study....

Until to-morrow.

March 30. A frost.

So, then, I entered Kirila Matvyeevitch's study. I would give a good deal to any one who could have shown me my own face at the moment when that worthy official, hastily wrapping his Bukhara dressing-gown round him, stepped forward to meet me with outstretched hands. I must have fairly radiated an atmosphere of modest triumph, patronising sympathy, and limitless magnanimity.... I felt that I was something in the nature of Scipio Africa.n.u.s. Ozhogin was visibly embarra.s.sed and depressed, avoided my eye, and shifted from foot to foot where he stood. I also noticed that he talked in an unnaturally-loud manner, and altogether expressed himself very indefinitely;--indefinitely, but with fervour, did he beg my pardon, indefinitely alluded to the departed visitor, added a few general and indefinite remarks about the deceitfulness and instability of earthly blessings, and suddenly, becoming conscious of a tear in his eye, he hastened to take a pinch of snuff, probably with the object of deluding me as to the cause which was making him weep.... He used green Russian snuff, and every one knows that that plant makes even old men shed tears, athwart which the human eye peers forth dimly and senselessly for the s.p.a.ce of several minutes.

As a matter of course I treated the old man very cautiously, inquired after the health of his wife and daughter, and at once turned the conversation artfully on the interesting question of rotation of crops.

I was dressed as usual; but the feeling of soft decorum and gentle condescension which filled my breast, afforded me a festive and fresh sensation, as though I were wearing a white waistcoat and a white neckcloth. One thing disturbed me: the thought of meeting Liza again....

At last Ozhogin himself proposed to conduct me to his wife. That good, but stupid woman, on beholding me, at first became frightfully embarra.s.sed; but her brain was incapable of preserving one and the same impression for long together, and therefore she speedily recovered her equanimity. At last I saw Liza.... She entered the room....

I had expected that I should find in her an abashed, penitent sinner, and had already in advance imparted to my face the most cordial and encouraging expression.... Why should I lie? I really loved her and thirsted for the happiness of forgiving her, of putting out my hand to her; but, to my unspeakable amazement, in reply to my significant bow, she laughed coldly, remarked carelessly: "Ah? so it 's you?" and immediately turned away from me. Her laugh appeared to me forced, it is true, and, in any case, was ill-suited to her dreadfully emaciated face.... But, nevertheless, I had not expected such a reception.... I stared at her in astonishment.... What a change had taken place in her!

Between the former child and this woman there was nothing in common. She seemed to have grown taller, to have drawn herself up straighter; all her features, especially her lips, seemed to have acquired a more defined outline .... her gaze had become more profound, more firm, and dark. I sat with the Ozhogins until dinner; she rose, left the room and returned to it, calmly replied to questions, and deliberately took no heed of me. I could see that she wished to make me feel that I was not worthy even of her anger, although I had come near killing her lover. At last I lost patience: a malicious hint broke from my lips.... She shuddered, darted a swift glance at me, rose, and, walking to the window, said in a voice which trembled slightly: "You can say anything you like, but you must know that I love that man and shall always love him, and do not consider him to blame toward me in the slightest degree, on the contrary ...." Her voice broke with a tinkle, she paused ....

tried to control herself, but could not, and burst into tears and left the room.... The elder Ozhogins grew confused.... I shook hands with both of them, sighed, cast a glance upward, and went away.

I am too weak, there is too little time left to me, I am not in a condition to describe with my former minuteness this new series of torturing meditations, firm intentions, and other fruits of the so-called inward conflict, which started up in me after the renewal of my acquaintance with the Ozhogins. I did not doubt that Liza still loved and would long love the Prince .... but, being a man tamed now by circ.u.mstances and who had resigned himself to his fate, I did not even dream of her love: I merely desired her friendship, I wanted to win her confidence, her respect, which, according to the a.s.sertions of experienced persons, is regarded as the most trustworthy foundation for happiness in marriage..... Unhappily, I had lost sight of one rather important circ.u.mstance--namely, that Liza had hated me ever since the day of the duel. I learned this too late.

I began to frequent the Ozhogins' house as of yore. Kirila Matvyeevitch was more cordial to me and petted me more than ever. I even have cause to think that at the time he would have gladly given me his daughter, although I was not an enviable match: public opinion condemned him and Liza, and, on the other hand, extolled me to the skies. Liza's treatment of me did not change: she maintained silence most of the time, obeyed when she was bidden to eat, displayed no outward signs of grief, but, nevertheless, she wasted away like a candle. I must do justice to Kirila Matvyeevitch: he spared her in every possible way; old Madame Ozhogin merely bristled up as she looked at her poor child. There was only one man whom Liza did not avoid, although she did not talk much to him, namely, Bizmyonkoff. The old Ozhogins treated him sternly, even roughly; they could not pardon him for having acted as second; but he continued to come to their house, as though he did not notice their disfavour.

With me he was very cold, and,--strange to say!--I felt afraid of him, as it were. This state of things lasted for about a fortnight. At last, after a sleepless night, I made up my mind to have an explanation with Liza, to lay bare my heart before her; to tell her that, notwithstanding the past, notwithstanding all sorts of rumours and gossip, I should regard myself as too happy if she would favour me with her hand, would restore to me her trust. I really, without jesting, imagined that I was exhibiting, as the compendiums of literature put it, an unprecedented example of magnanimity, and that she would give her consent out of sheer amazement. In any case, I wanted to clear up the situation with her, and escape, definitively, from my state of uncertainty.

Behind the Ozhogins' house lay a fairly s.p.a.cious garden, terminating in a linden coppice, neglected and overgrown. In the middle of this coppice rose an old arbour in the Chinese style; a board fence separated the garden from a blind-alley. Liza sometimes strolled for hours at a time alone in this garden. Kirila Matvyeevitch knew this and had given orders that she was not to be disturbed, and kept a watch over her: "Let her grief wear itself out," he said. When she was not to be found in the house, it was only necessary to ring a small bell on the porch at dinner-time, and she immediately presented herself, with the same obdurate taciturnity on her lips and in her gaze, and some sort of crumpled leaf in her hand. So, one day, observing that she was not in the house, I pretended that I was making ready to depart, took leave of Kirila Matvyeevitch, put on my hat, and emerged from the anteroom into the courtyard, and from the courtyard into the street, but instantly, with extraordinary swiftness, slipped back through the gate and made my way past the kitchen into the garden. Luckily, no one espied me. Without pausing long to think, I entered the grove with hasty steps. Before me, on the path, stood Liza. My heart began to beat violently in my breast.

I stopped short, heaved a deep sigh, and was on the point of approaching her, when all of a sudden, without turning round, she raised her hand and began to listen.... From behind the trees, in the direction of the blind-alley, two knocks rang out clearly, as though some one were tapping on the fence. Liza clapped her hands, a faint squeaking of the wicket-gate became audible, and Bizmyonkoff emerged from the coppice. I promptly hid myself behind a tree. Liza turned silently toward him....

Silently he drew her arm through his, and both walked softly along the path. I stared after them in astonishment. They halted, looked about them, disappeared behind the bushes, appeared again, and finally entered the arbour. This arbour was circular in shape, a tiny little building, with one door and one small window; in the centre was to be seen an old table with a single leg, overgrown with fine green moss; two faded little plank divans stood at the sides, at some distance from the damp and dark-hued walls. Here, on unusually hot days, and that once a year, and in former times, they had been in the habit of drinking tea. The door would not shut at all; the frame had long ago fallen out of the window and, catching by one corner, dangled mournfully, like the wounded wing of a bird. I stole up to the arbour and cautiously glanced through a crack of the window. Liza was sitting on one of the little divans, with drooping head; her right hand lay on her lap; Bizmyonkoff was holding the left in both his hands. He was gazing at her with sympathy.

"How do you feel to-day?"--he asked her, in a low voice.

"Just the same!"--she replied;--"neither better nor worse.--Emptiness, frightful emptiness!"--she added, dejectedly raising her eyes.

Bizmyonkoff made no reply.

"What think you," she went on;--"will he write to me again?"

"I think not, Lizaveta Kirillovna!"

She remained silent for a while.

"And, in fact, what is there for him to write about? He told me everything in his first letter. I could not be his wife; but I was happy ... not for long.... I was happy...."

Bizmyonkoff lowered his eyes.

"Akh,"--she went on with animation;--"if you only knew how loathsome that Tchulkaturin is to me!... It always seems to me that I can see ..... his blood ... on that man's hands." (I writhed behind my crack.) "However,"--she added thoughtfully;--"who knows,--perhaps had it not been for that duel .... Akh, when I beheld him wounded, I immediately felt that I was all his."

"Tchulkaturin loves you,"--remarked Bizmyonkoff.

"What do I care for that? Do I need any one's love?..." She paused, and added slowly: ... "except yours. Yes, my friend, your love is indispensable to me: without you I should have perished. You have helped me to endure terrible moments...."

She ceased.... Bizmyonkoff began to stroke her hand with paternal tenderness. "There 's no help for it, there 's no help for it, Lizaveta Kirillovna,"--he repeated, several times in succession.